


Shall Yourselves Find Blessing

by prolixdreams



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Christmas, Christmas Tree, Emotions, First Kiss, Hallucinations, Love Confessions, M/M, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Silly, yes I did stick my favorite christmas song in the middle of a fanfic why do you ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 06:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17137082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prolixdreams/pseuds/prolixdreams
Summary: Castiel gets in over his head in a pocket reality created when he accidentally takes a sip of a drink intended to help angels focus on what's most important.Dean won't have it. He's going in.





	Shall Yourselves Find Blessing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunavva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunavva/gifts).



> This work is part of the Profound Bond Gift Exchange: Winter Wonderland Edition. Many thanks to our exchange-runners. 
> 
> This goes out to Lunavva, my lovely giftee. I was in a pretty odd headspace when it came time to write this, so it's a little quirky. I hope you like it. Happy Holidays.

 

One tall metal locker down, six to go.

For all that Dean loves the bunker, there are moments when it drives him a little batty. Never before in life has he had so many _things_ around, more things than he could possibly fit in a duffel bag and take away at a moment's notice -- it makes him nervous, like it’s not only a home, but also another family member in his care. It doesn’t help that at this particular moment, he’s being swallowed by one of those most exhausting monsters he’s ever faced:

A large walk-in closet full of cluttered metal lockers.

“Trash!” Dean shouts, tossing an object to Sam, who is doing his part by standing in the hall with two bins – one regular plastic garbage bin with a liner for things that can get thrown out normally, and one tall metal container, for things that need to be burned.

Sam turns the little wooden plank over in his carefully gloved hands. “Dean, this has some kind of inscription on it."

“Well, what does it say?” He doesn’t even move to pull his head out from the box he’s examining, making his own voice sound strange to him.

“It’s uh…” Sam mumbles briefly to himself, Dean can’t make out what he says until he raises his voice again: “Well on one side it's got Enochian, Latin on the other. the Latin’s weird, but it seems like it might be… cursed, or poisonous or something. Did it touch your skin?”

“Not an idiot!” Dean shouts back from inside the locker, though he does do a quick spot check of his own gloves. No holes – good. “Burnable?”

“Probably,” Sam affirms loudly, and Dean hears the clatter as the thing lands in the metal bin. “But we might want to run it past Cas when he gets back, just to be sure. Are you sure it wasn't attached to anything? It looked like a lid or a tray or something. Why would someone just curse a plank of wood?"

“Why does anyone do anything, Sa—” Dean’s cut off by dust in his lungs forcing him to cough. In the process, his flashlight beam swings wild, and for a second, it makes a slender, tapered shadow on the wall.

He aims it back at where he’d seen the shadow and confirms the shape of a bottle – and not one of those gross jar-like sample containers either, almost definitely the kind of bottle you’d use for a beverage. Maybe an alcoholic one. Perhaps even an expensive, aged alcoholic one? He can't help getting his hopes up as he approaches. If the bunker were to surrender something like that (just in time for Christmas, no less) he might feel a little more forgiving about the maintenance. 

“Dean?!” There’s a note of concern in Sam’s voice when the silence lingers too long after the cough. 

“All good. I uh… I think I found something here,” Dean calls back. "I'm gonna need some help, though."

The case is long and narrow, and on closer inspection, it holds single row of three bottles. It's wedged behind a bolted-down locker, and with the clutter in the room, it's impossible to slide out. Once Dean has soundly failed to get it free, Sam sidles in for an equally useless attempt. It's as if someone set this up to be specifically difficult to shift. 

"I definitely think we need Cas." Sam admits. 

"Or," Dean suggests, suddenly feeling like a little girl with a pickle jar, "We could just pull that first bottle out and see if it's anything interesting before we go bothering him."

There’s a sort of pause, by the end of which they’ve wordlessly agreed on the plan. Dean slides the most accessible bottle from the crate and the two of them scurry into the better light of the hall to get a look at it.

The bottle itself defies expectations. For one, it had been sitting in a deep nest of that strange, soft crate-filler material, and turns out to be smaller than it had looked. It’s also jet black and completely opaque, resembling volcanic rock more than the glass Dean had initially assumed.

It bears no label, but there are etchings.

“Dean—” Sam draws away, his almost giddy curiosity suddenly replaced with wariness.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees with the unfinished thought.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Castiel kneels in the snow, lays his hand low on the trunk of the tree, and asks a question of it. Images pass through him: Sam and Dean saving the world time and time again. Sam and Dean, in pain and afraid. Then, a promise: Sam and Dean, laughing beneath this tree, adorned with sparkling lights, silver tinsel, and glittering baubles?

_Yes, Seraph,_ answers the tree in its way. _I consent. This form is yours to use as you see fit. I trust your judgment._

Firs are generally agreeable to begin with, but this one seems to positively hum – a social tree, Castiel images that some of them may already know of the Winchesters and their deeds. In a painless instant, he severs the tree about twelve inches from the ground. Grace flares in his eyes as he carefully returns the core of the tree to its stump and blesses it, that it may grow just as fruitfully once more.

He stretches his wings out and out, deep into the ether of the sidereal plane, and they bow in a deep, sustained flap.

Liftoff.

Angels are meant to fly: after a few years grounded, it’s a pleasure he doesn’t think he will ever take for granted again. Flying with a nine-foot pine tree in tow is a little tricky, but he was always one of the most technical fliers in the garrison, and the challenge feels more like a pleasant stretch than a chore.

Sam and Dean will be pleased, he’s certain – both of them have spent the last month or so quietly, carefully avoiding Christmas talk. It had taken some digging to realize that since they’ve arrived at the bunker, neither of them has really gone out of their way to decorate, to do _anything_ for Christmas, and as he gathered data, he’s found the reason: they’re both terrified.

“Jinx” is their word associated with the concept, though angels would be more likely to call it “hubris.” They’re afraid of loss, precipitated by pride or comfort, and he’s determined to break them of it.

If there’s one thing they both deserve, it’s Christmas.

Of course Castiel had to lie about where he’s gone, to maintain the surprise. If either of them suspected anything, they didn’t let on. It’s impossible to know whether they’d believed him, or just decided to give him his privacy. Freed from the needs of sleep and food, it’s taken him about two days to find it: a stunning Balsam Fir, perfectly conical, full and dark and lovely, just the right height for the War Room.

Fortunately, it survives the trip through both the sidereal plane and the bunker door. 

If anyone is home, they aren’t exactly making their presence known. This isn’t entirely bad – he’d hoped he might have a chance to do the more tedious bits of the process on his own. He wrestles the tree as lovingly as he can into a tree stand filled with water and surrounded by a lush red tree skirt.

Where are they, anyway?

He can smell them on the air, but it’s hard to tell how recently they’ve been in the room. The library is dark and quiet, and he flicks on the lights from a distance as he passes through.

The kitchen is still, no signs of recent life save for the glass of wine on the counter.

Neither Sam nor Dean tend to drink wine, given the choice, but nor do they frequently turn down alcohol, so Castiel supposes it isn’t completely strange. He pauses by the glass. The liquid inside is a rich garnet, and there’s something unusual about the scent, some molecule that doesn’t fit the pattern.

Gingerly, he lifts the glass. Worry creeps up his spine. If there’s something _wrong_ with the wine… have Sam and Dean already had some? Could they be in danger? There are so few adulterants in the world that could truly hurt him, Castiel reasons, that the most logical thing to do is to have a sip for analysis.

The moment the liquid touches his lips, it all makes sense.

_Sobam._

It’s like sinking into the ground. It _is_ sinking into the ground. Cas’ mouth stretches into something like a smile, is it a smile? He turns to the wall, and watches it glow and melt away like hot wax. He slips through a hole in the world, into the place that’s calling him.

  

* * *

 

 

 

“Here, Dean—” Sam holds the book in the yellow light between the stacks of the archive, and points to the words scrawled on the page.

Sam reads aloud.

_“Sobam: An angelic_ spirit _, one might say, if one were inclined to humor. I consider myself uniquely fortunate to have tasted it. To an ordinary human untouched by Grace, it would seem little different from a strong wine, or perhaps absinthe, but when it encounters Grace, the effect is truly incredible. It seems to unlock, even in a mere Seraph, reality-creating abilities nearly as powerful as those of an archangel, but with significantly less conscious control of the content.”_

“So what does that mean for us?” Dean frowns. “We’ve both been… I mean, can _we_ drink it, or not?”

Sam’s eyes flit over the text. “Seems like—well for angels, it’s a hallucinogen, and that’s putting it lightly. Says here they could stay in the fake reality for decades, if that’s how long it took to, quote, _reset their perspective._ ”

Dean’s mouth quirks into a smile. “So it’s angel peyote? You think Cas ever…”

“I doubt it,” Sam goes on, “I mean, maybe, but… remember what he used to be like, Dean? Not exactly the experimental type. Anyway, says here that they could enter a shared hallucination, and one of them could kind of _guide_ the other one back to reality _._ It gets kind of steamy after that, actually, looks like the angel and this guy—”

“I got it.” Dean really tries to stop him there.

“The angel’s clearly in a male vessel, no wonder the text is anonymous, back then he’d probably have gotten in a lot of trouble—”

“Sam—”

“Must have been rough, is all I’m saying. It’s uh…” Sam coughs, “It’s just good that it’s not like that anymore, you know? That kind of thing, obviously fine now.”

“Right,” Dean tries to move past _that_ as quickly as possible. “We should probably wait until Cas gets back, see what he has to say about the stuff.”

“Yeah,” Sam affirms. “So what do we do with the glass we poured in the kitchen?”

“I don’t know, stick it in the fridge or something,” Dean shrugs. “It’s been around this long, it’ll probably keep.”

Sam passes him and disappears down the hall to take care of it.

They don’t talk much about Stanford, but Dean wonders – just how much of a nerd _was_ Sam? And how much grace is left rattling around either of them from their respective possessions? If he picked up that bottle and took a swig, would he spend Christmas tripping balls, or just get drunk, or something in between?

Might be fun, Dean considers. Get past those holiday blues—

“ _DEAN!”_ Sam’s hoarse scream reaches him from halfway across the bunker, all the necessary information communicated in one syllable, and Dean’s taking wide strides, halfway to the kitchen before he even realizes what he’s doing.

Cas is on the ground between the counter and the island, stiff and weak, with an expression like he’s looking at something very far away.

“Cas!” Dean calls out, dropping to his knees, fairly certain it’s useless but calling out anyway. “Cas, can you hear me?”

“Dean?” Cas’ voice is small and distant.

“I’m right here buddy.” Dean closes his hand over Cas’ shoulder.

Cas’ brows furrow like he’s trying and failing to focus, and Dean realizes that he can’t see what’s around him, at least not very well. He’s breathing hard, especially for an angel. His hand is on Dean’s arm, gripping hard enough to leave a bruise. “Dean – It’s you.”

“Yeah, it’s me, I’ve got you. Stay with me.”

“No I mean, it’s you, it’s been you, it has to be _you_ ,” Cas says before going slack, eyes open and lit up with a glassy, steady grace-glow.

“Cas?” Dean calls out, even shakes him, but his body is slack again, eyes glowing like a blank screen. “Cas! Hey, Cas, snap out of it. Cas!”

“Dean,” Sam’s voice is gentle. “I think he’s okay – I mean, he’s not in danger, based on what the book said.”

“Screw the book, Sam, how does this look okay to you? We have to do _something._ ” Dean demands. He can’t just leave him like this, not after hearing the word _decades_.

“We don’t even know if he drank it on purpose or not,” Sam points out. “Maybe he wanted to—”

“How do I go in there? It said somebody could go in there.”

Sam hems and haws for a moment. Ultimately, he recounts the simple requirements: having sipped from the same glass, and having physical contact.

That’s all Dean needs to hear. He’s already draining the glass before Sam can even finish his sentence. The counter jumps and the stove vibrates. The floor comes up to meet him. His hand touches Cas’, and warmth shoots up his arm.

He’s falling through the world.

 

 

Beautiful is an understatement.

It takes Dean a moment to realize what the walls are made of. He’s never seen anything like it – undulating waves of blue, glassy light, still as stone and glittering. The icy cavern arcs around him and beneath him. He’s got no coat, nothing but a t-shirt and a flannel to protect him from the chill that circulates in the air.

Shit.

Okay.

Focus. The cold is making it difficult. If he’d known it was going to be cold inside Cas’ hallucination, he’d have worn something different going in, but he can’t do much about it now.

At the mouth of the cave, there’s a silhouette he’d recognize anywhere.

“Cas?” He calls out, startled by the echo of his own voice. He tries to take off running, but the ground – ice, like everything else – is too slippery. If he’s careful, he can move toward the entrance, but a sprint is out of the question. Dean picks his way across the ice as fast as he can, but—

The silhouette turns inward, coat rustling in the wind, and then crumples in a flash of light.

“Cas!” Dean stumbles forward beneath the ice archway, out into a wild expanse of windblown snow and black volcanic rock, but there’s nothing there.

What is he doing here?

Where is he?

Dean shakes off his confusion, and dusts the falling snow off his fur-edged robes. The storm has already started to come, and the sun is setting. Sir Samuel will be awaiting him back at the fortress. At his feet, a russet stag lays slain and field-dressed – his kill, and one that will make an excellent feast for everyone. They’d absolutely laid waste to most of the turkey at Christmas, so venison will round out the St. Stephen’s Day stew nicely.

He loads it carefully into the sleigh and drags it to the black steed that waits for him, nickering and puffing little clouds of breath into the winter air.

In better weather, the sunset would paint the pale stone of the squared-off stronghold in pinks and oranges. Now, it only grows gray and dark as the light fades. The edifice towers over the hillside, and Dean can see Sam at one of the narrow windows. He raises one leather-gloved arm in a wave, but Sam doesn’t respond – he must be deeply distracted by some view not to notice his lord’s hail, and Dean means to find out what has him so preoccupied.  

Luckily, he has help – the staff of the modest castle is more than pleased with the results of his hunt, though they playfully scold him for going on his own, and before he knows it, they’re taking care of his kill and his horse, and he’s scaling the steps to the outlook.

“Milord!” Sam calls, a little humor in it, turning as he hears Dean’s boots on the stone. “A successful hunt, I hope?”

“How many times have I told you not to call me so?” Dean chides, though the words feel strange in his mouth.

“I was raised properly,” Sam defends.

“We were raised together,” Dean snipes back, “And proper is not the word I’d use. Did you not see me approach?”

“I did not.” At this, Sam glances back out, through the opening.

Dean follows his gaze, and sees what has drawn it. At the edge of the forest, the dark figure of a man can be seen against the snow. He bends into the wind and sinks into the deep drifts. The clouds part, and the bright light of the full moon makes his shape all the clearer. There’s something familiar in his movements that pulls at Dean, but he can’t put his finger on what it might be.

As they watch, he vanishes back into the woods.

“He looks to be gathering firewood,” Dean says. “Who is he?”

“I know a little of him,” admits Sam. “Mark me: the staff call him a hermit, and it seems that he lives at the far edge of Castieland, by a spring that lies at the foot of the mountain. It is perhaps a league from here.”

Dean claps Sam on the back. “A font of knowledge, if ever there were one. Shall we go?”

“Go?” Sam aims a quizzical look at Dean.

“To help him, of course,” Dean clarifies, as though it were obvious, and to him, it is. “Had I known of him, I would have done so already. Saving people, is that not our creed?"

“Oh! Yes, of course.” Surprise is evident on Sam’s face, but so is agreement. “This weather is as much a monster as any other.”

“Let us bring some meat, and wine,” Dean plans. “Pine wood, too, better for the fire than what sticks lay in this snow.”

They make short work of their preparations. Together, the Steward of Castieland and his faithful knight venture forth.

Having caught sight of the moon earlier, Dean had hoped that the storm would fade as they progressed. Instead, it only builds. The night gets colder, and the frost bites at the both of them. Sam does his level best to stay at Dean’s side, but his watch has been long, and he is not entirely well.

He falls behind.

“Sam!” Dean calls over the growing storm.

“I’m sorry,” Sam calls back. “I fear the storm may defeat me – I should have sent someone else in my place.”

“Never,” Dean assures. He reaches out to grasp Sam’s arm, to help his progress. “We’re in this together.”

All at once, a mysterious warmth seems to start at Deans feet and rise straight through his body.

“Sam, look there—” Dean points back the way they came. “Do you see my footprints?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll walk ahead,” Dean explains. “Walk behind me, use my footprints, understand?”

Sam frowns at first, and Dean can read his confusion – he doesn’t know how it will help. Regardless, his faith leads him to nod.

Dean strides forward with purpose toward the edge of the forest. The next time he turns, Sam’s not just better, he’s outright grinning – as if each step in Dean’s footprints brings warmth and strength. In this way, they’re able to make it to where the trees begin, and Dean steps through across the harsh border and into the woods.

“What happened?” Sam asks from behind him, as the wind dies down. “Did the angels bless us?”

Angels. The word is like a needle in Dean’s temple, or a screw, burrowing into him. It floats through his mind, and links together with something:

Angel.

Castiel.

_Cas._

He looks up, and Sam is gone. Even though it’s just some version of Sam conjured by Cas’ mind, Dean feels the loss. The fortress in this distance has vanished, and so have the robes – he’s back in his t-shirt and flannel, alone in the blizzard just past where the woods begin.

Where is there to go but forward?

There’s no way to know exactly how long, with the starless night above, and he simply follows the faint path through the barren trees.

He walks for a long time.

He walks until he shivers violently.

He walks until his feet protest.

He walks until his legs grow heavy.

He walks until each step makes him _angry._ This hadn’t been what he’d expected at all, none of it. This isn’t what he signed up for. He was ready to come in here and fight, to battle Cas’ inner demons, to drag him kicking and screaming out of his own head, to say whatever needed saying, to win the day. He was ready to throw punches or insults or bricks or whatever else needed throwing.

For a moment, he questions if he should have come here at all. If Cas needs to process his shit, he probably deserves the rest. Dean curses himself. He’s doing that thing again, isn’t he? That thing, where he demands that everyone be on call for him, be there for him, live so that he doesn’t have to deal with them being gone.

After all, Cas was the one who drank the stuff in the first place, wasn’t he? Sam was probably right – he knew what he was doing, he did it for a reason, and now Dean’s here, probably screwing everything up.  

It was selfish to even come here.

He’s so wrapped up in self-flagellation, he hardly notices the landscape change.

Trees still surround him, but not like before. They glitter too much, even for being snow-covered. It takes Dean a moment to realize that these aren’t _wood_ at all, but glass, or maybe crystal. The moonlight off the branches is mesmerizing.

With almost childlike wonder, he reaches out to touch one.

It shatters into sparkling powder on contact.

Sounds about right, Dean thinks. Then: _You’re making it about you again,_ says the voice in his head. _This isn’t about you._

No, it isn’t – it’s about Cas. It’s Cas’ hallucination, it’s how _Cas_ sees things. Dean looks back along the path, and now that he wants to, he sees them too: spaces where trees should be, and little piles of glitter on the ground. He hadn’t even noticed them before. If he squints, he can see them: in each empty space, above each shattered mound of powder, a gently quivering pillar of soft light.

Once he catches the first one, he can see them everywhere – spaces where trees should be, and aren’t. Hundreds of them, just in the distance he can make out, with those strands (they look almost like grace, Dean thinks) rising from the ground where they’d stood.

Remnants of things that Cas thinks he broke, Dean imagines.

Dean picks up the pace, now. His feet beat against the snowy path, and all he can hear is the crunch beneath them and the steady rhythm of his own breath.

Finally, he catches sight of it: smoke, rising in the distance, then a chimney, and then at last the little obsidian cabin (cabin is a generous word given the size of the thing, Dean thinks) beneath the crystal branches.

Cas. Cas is in there. He’s in there, he has to be.

He almost throws the door open when he reaches it, but stops, and knocks instead.

There’s no answer at first. It’s _so_ tempting to back up, tense his shoulder, and throw himself against it –he’s almost sure that he could shatter the latch with one strong hit.

Dean takes a long, deep breath and lets it out, a cloud in the air.

He waits.

“Cas, it’s me, I’m here to…” To what? Dean asks himself. _It’s not about you._ “Can I come in?”

Eventually, the door swings open.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It took so long to get here, to find a safe place that he can rest. He hadn’t expected so many visitors.

Castiel had been overwhelmed with joy to see the first Dean, so much so that he’d pulled him into a hug. _That_ Dean pushed him away and told him to cut out the soap opera crap and get a move on. The second Dean argued with him, reminded him of everything on Earth, and demanded he leave, because everyone’s depending on him. The third Dean scolded him for coming to this place to start with.

There’d been a fourth, and a fifth, and more, so many more. Some of them are dressed strangely, some of them younger, and others older. Some of them are angry, and others sad. Some use guilt, some use compliments, some use apologies, some use fury, but each one, every single one, demands in their own way that Castiel leave with them.

Each time, the illusion breaks him down one way or another. It doesn’t matter what he does, in the end, he always finally agrees to follow the latest Dean out the door, and when he steps out, the fake Dean (whichever one it is) vanishes and the blizzard kicks up and makes the path back an impassable white-out. He’s retreated back inside time and time again.

This latest one is a lot more patient, Castiel admits.

Ultimately, he raises one hand toward the door and wills it to swing open.

“Hello, Dean.” He says, again, without getting up from his spot on the floor by the fireplace, where a healthy, bluish-white flame slowly consumes a crystalline log. Castiel is tired.

“Cas,” The relief on Dean’s features looks so real. Dean swallows. Castiel watches him suppress a shiver. “Can… can I come in?”

Castiel nods. He watches Dean with some wariness, waiting for a familiar pattern to emerge. _I’m here to bring you home,_ perhaps, or _Let’s get out of here,_ or _I’m not leaving here without you._ He closes the door behind Dean, and watches Dean’s gaze flick around the single room and get caught on the fire.

“Let me tell you, man, you’re a sight for sore eyes, and feet,” Dean huffs out a little laugh. He closes the door behind him, approaches the fire, and toes off his boots before he lowers himself to sit cross-legged on the floor next to Castiel – close, but not too close. “How are you doing?”

None of them have asked him that.

“I don’t know,” Castiel answers honestly.

“Did you start out here, or…”

“I walked out of a lake, in a crater.” Castiel says, dreamily, and then goes back a little farther than that: “I drank… Dean, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize… I never meant to leave you all. I would never.”

“Cas, you don’t have to apologize.” Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the fire. “Hell, you could have done it on purpose, and you still wouldn’t. I’m the last person you have to explain self-medicating to.”

There’s a long, long silence then.

“Cas… what you said, when I found you…”

Castiel shakes his head. This is a very different conversation than he’s had with any of the other Deans so far. “I don’t know. I remember… bringing the tree in. I went into the kitchen. Everything after that…”

“Yeah, okay.”

“What did I say?” Castiel looks at Dean, crosslegged and leaning forward on his own knees.

“You said…” Dean closes his eyes. He swallows. “You said, ‘it has to be you.’ And then you just…”

Dean raises one hand to his own eyes and does this little gesture, a mime of lighting up.

Castiel has never seen an angel drink _Sobam_ in a vessel before, though he knows it’s been done, but he can imagine it: his body, lit up from behind the eyes but otherwise limp on the bunker’s kitchen floor.

“You want to know what I meant.” Castiel confirms.

Dean looks back, finally. Their eyes meet, and they rest there for a long moment. Another blizzard rages outside. Castiel knows: this _is_ different.

This Dean is real.

He’s… almost positive.

“God made angels to love. It's the… prime directive, as you might say, to love God and His creations. The trouble is that I’ve long suspected – blasphemous as this may be – that love is a thing all its own, perhaps bigger even than Him, even stranger and even more unknowable _."_ Castiel does not conceal the note of frustration in trying to use this language, and this _mouth_ to express something that it wasn’t meant for.

They both focus on the fire. Eye contact is a bit much.

“There’s no jealousy, no fear, no posturing, no secrets,” Castiel does his level best to explain. “Angels in love with other angels make for a _very_ boring story, to human eyes. I've been told that the bond is intense, though, to say the least. Only those who bonded that way could enter one another’s _Sobam_ visions and guide them home. Doing so became a tool to express and deepen those feelings.”

“Why do I think that might not have gone over well with the big guy, back before he mellowed out?” Dean ventures.

“It didn’t. He forbade its use, eventually. In retrospect, I know that He feared angels loving one another more than they loved Him. He must have known, then, that love was beyond his control. _Sobam_ had provided spiritual guidance in times of doubt, but heaven complied with His orders and found _other_ , less pleasant ways to keep one another…” Castiel struggles for the word, and settles on: “…focused.”

“The headgear.” Dean says, on-the-nose as always.

“Among other such things.”

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Years ago, you said to Sam—”

Castiel interrupts him with a deep, soft laugh. He hopes Dean won’t mind that they’re on the same wavelength, in this place, that it’s impossible _not_ to connect and understand. He's stuck on a word.

_“A more profound bond,_ _"_ Castiel quotes himself, nodding. "Sometimes it's difficult for me to know what should be said and what shouldn't, and when, even now. The rules seem so arbitrary and byzantine. I suppose that was the first time I mentioned out loud, in my own way, that I love you.”

“Right.” Dean nods. “I uh…”

“Dean, it’s alright.” A smile tugs at the corner of Castiel’s mouth. “You came here and found me, and that's enough. I know it’s hard for you to—”

“No. No, Cas. This is important. Maybe not for… angels, or whatever, but for me, for humans. It matters. I was stupid, and I missed a chance, once, hell you were _dying,_ and then you _did_ die, _again,_ and the regret, I just… I thought—Cas, I’m not gonna be stupid again. It means something to say it, maybe just to me, but… I _love_ you,” Dean says, and then adds, “The… the human way.”

The fire crackles.

It means something to Castiel too, something he only realizes once he’s heard it. It shouldn’t. There’s no reason for it. What difference does it make, said or unsaid, if it’s true and he knows it? He used to get so quickly tired of _speaking_ in a vessel, vibrations in the air as a means to an end, noise as an _incredibly slow_ mode of information transfer, or, heaven forbid, yammering for the sake of filling a perfectly acceptable silence.

It’s strange, how much things have changed in such a short time.

“I hope I haven't misunderstood anything," Castiel shifts his position into one that can be more easily modified, if the next few words are well received. “I've never kissed anyone in a context that wasn't at least partially antagonistic. I’d like that, with you. It seems overdue.”

“There’s an understatement.” Dean’s features soften with relief – in part, Castiel imagines, at the opportunity to be even a little jocular, and likely also in part that the hardest bit of conversation is over, and they might soon be playing on a field he’s more familiar with. 

It’s an awkward sort of motion, when Castiel edges forward on his knees, but Dean’s scoot forward isn’t much more graceful, and neither of them seems to mind.

In front of the fire, their lips meet. Castiel wonders if it counts, since it’s in some kind of pocket reality created by his subconscious, but ultimately decides that as long as they both remember it, it counts.

It’s chaste and unsure, but it gives him ideas that are… less so. It’ll have to wait, though. Those things, he’d prefer to explore in the real world, and he thinks he’d like to take his time, despite all the time they’ve already got to make up for.

When they pull apart, Dean’s trying and failing to resist a little smile that makes him look ten years younger.

He stands and dusts himself off. “I’d like to try and go back,” Castiel says, suggesting it himself for the first time.

“Wait,” Dean says, tying his shoes and getting to his feet.

Dean’s still getting his shoes back on when Castiel opens the door. As he steps through it though, the wind starts to build again, and the snowflakes fall fast and hard. The blizzard is back, and for a moment, Castiel’s heart stops _(it was wrong, you’re wrong, you were fooled again, you just wanted him to join you and—)_

“Cas?” Dean’s hand slips into Castiel’s, and the wind stops. The snow stops.

With the brief white-out cleared, Castiel can see the trees: still snow-covered, but wooden now, as real and alive as anything could be.

Castiel steps off to one side of the cleared area, into the woods, and Dean goes with him. The path is quickly forgotten as they disappear into the trees, making their own way.

 

  

* * *

 

 

 

The kitchen ceiling comes into focus.

“Dean?” Sam’s tenor is the first thing Dean hears, and he doesn’t need to find Sam’s face to know the face he’s making. He’s regained consciousness under Sam’s watch enough times to know.

How long has he been out? Dean turns his head.

Cas’ eyes are open, no longer luminescent or glassy, but still completely inhuman in the sharpness of their focus. When Dean meets them, he stops breathing for a second. He can’t stop himself glancing down at Cas’ mouth, and…

And screw it, Sam’s going find out one way or another. Might as well have a little fun with it. Dean rolls onto his side and reaches out for Cas’ face. He cups Cas’ jaw, and Cas instantly catches on and there they are, crashing into one another (for the _second_ time, thank you very much) on the kitchen floor.

Somewhere past the kiss, he hears the scrape of the chair Sam must have pulled up to watch over them while they were out.

“O… kay!” Sam says, his voice getting further and further away along with his footsteps. “I’m glad you’re both okay and congrats and I’m glad this is resolved and everything but I’ll just be putting lights on this tree, _way over here._ ”

Dean tastes the real-world physical Cas for just a few moments longer. There’s this little voiced sigh that comes out of one of them, and Dean has to back off and take a _real_ deep breath before he sits up.

“You okay?” He asks, a little dizzy himself.

“Entirely.” Cas answers, though his slight flush doesn’t escape Dean.

“Want to go decorate a tree?”

“That _is_ why I brought it.” Cas says, completely seriously.

Dean stands up first this time, and extends a completely unnecessary hand to Cas, who takes it anyway.

“Alright!” Dean calls out across the library and into the war room. “I am _beyond_ ready for a regular, normal alcoholic beverage.” He turns to Cas, then, and softly asks, “How about you?”

Cas murmurs that he wouldn’t mind a coffee, and Dean can certainly manage that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Late at night, when the humans have all gone to sleep, Cas listens.

To human ears, the bunker must be fairly quiet, but to him, it speaks. It whispers in the variations of the airflow through the ventilation system. It taps out a code in the drip of the pipes. It murmurs in the creaks of the settling walls and floors.

The sounds of home.

Cas had anticipated more reticence from both of them, but in the end, they’d unreservedly made an evening of it, complete with Dean playing music on Sam’s laptop (though not without some complaints about the selection) and finding cinnamon sticks (of questionable age) to put in hot whiskey.

The tree’s been beautiful its whole life, but now it’s beautiful in a different way – the three of them have covered it in little white lights, and mirror-silver garlands of tinsel. It doesn’t have many ornaments yet, but those will come. Now, maybe Sam and Dean will consider Christmas trees a possibility.

He likes to imagine the things they might pick up in their travels for next year.

 

 

 


End file.
